‘Andrea, are you aware that Miranda is on her way to the office?’ she asked, looking me up and down.
‘Sure am. I’ve got her newspapers right here and her water right here, and now I just need to get them back to her office. If you’ll excuse me …’
‘Andrea!’ she called as I ran past her, an ice cube flying out of the glass and landing outside the art department. ‘Remember to change your shoes!’
I stopped dead in my tracks and looked down. I was wearing a pair of funky street sneakers, the kind that weren’t designed to do anything but look cool. The rules of dress – unspoken and otherwise – were obviously relaxed when Miranda was away, and even though every single person in the office looked fantastic, each was wearing something they would swear up and down that they’d never, ever wear in front of Miranda. My bright red, mesh sneakers were a prime example.
I had broken a sweat by the time I made it back to our suite. ‘I’ve got all the papers and I bought the magazines, too, just in case. The only thing is, I don’t think I can wear these shoes, can I?’
Emily tore the headset from her ear and flung it down on her desk. ‘No, of course you can’t wear those.’ She picked up the phone, dialed four digits, and announced, ‘Jeffy, bring me a pair of Jimmy’s in a size …’ She looked at me.
‘Nine and a half.’ I pulled a small bottle of Pellegrino out of the closet and filled the glass.
‘Nine and a half. No, now. No, Jeff, I’m serious. Right now. Andrea is wearing sneakers for chrissake, red sneakers, and She’s going to be here any minute. OK, thanks.’
It was then I noticed that in the four minutes I’d been downstairs, Emily had managed to switch her faded jeans to leather pants and her own funky sneakers to open-toe stilettos. She’d also cleaned up the entire office suite, sweeping the contents of both our desks into drawers and stashing all of the incoming gifts that hadn’t yet been transferred to Miranda’s apartment in the closet. She had slicked on a fresh coat of lip gloss and added some color to her cheeks and was presently motioning for me to get moving.
I grabbed the bag of newspapers and shook them out in a pile on the lightbox in her office, a sort of underlit table where Emily said Miranda would stand for hours on end and examine film that had come in from photo shoots. But it was also where she liked her papers arranged, and once again, I consulted my legal pad for the correct order. First, the New York Times, followed by the Wall Street Journal, and then the Washington Post. And on and on the order went in a pattern I couldn’t distinguish, each placed slightly on top of the one before it until they fanned out across the table in formation. Women’s Wear Daily was the single exception: this was to be placed in the middle of her desk.
‘She’s here! Andrea, come out here! She’s on her way up,’ I heard Emily hiss from the outer area. ‘Uri just called to tell me he just dropped her off.’
I put WWD on her desk, placed the Pellegrino on a corner of her desk on a linen napkin (which side? I couldn’t remember which side it was supposed to go on), and darted from the office, taking one last look around to ensure that everything was in order. Jeffy, one of the fashion assistants who helped organize the fashion closet, tossed me a shoe box with a rubber band around it and bolted. I pulled it open immediately. Inside were a pair of Jimmy Choo heels with straps made of camel hair going every which way and buckles nestled in the middle of it all, probably worth around eight hundred dollars. Shit! I had to get these on. I yanked off my sneakers and my now sweaty socks and tossed them under my desk. The right one went on rather easily, but I couldn’t work my stubby fingernail to free the buckle on the left one until – there! I pried it open and thrust my left foot into it, watching the straps bite into the already swollen flesh. In another few seconds I had it buckled and was returning to an upright sitting position just as Miranda walked in.
Frozen. I was absolutely frozen in midmotion, my mind working fast enough to understand how ridiculous I must look, but not quite fast enough to move. She noticed me immediately, probably because she was expecting Emily to still be sitting at her old desk, and walked over. She leaned on the counter that ran over my desk, leaned over it and even closer to me, until she was able to see my entire body as I sat, immobilized, in the chair. Her bright blue eyes moved up and down, side to side, all over my white button-down, my red corduroy Gap miniskirt, my now buckled camel-hair Jimmy Choo sandals. I felt her examine every inch of me, skin and hair and clothes, her eyes moving so quickly but her face remaining frozen. She leaned closer still, until her face was only a foot from mine and I could smell the fantastic aroma of salon shampoo and expensive perfume, so close that I could see the very fine lines around her mouth and eyes that were invisible from a more comfortable distance. But I couldn’t look too long at her face, because she was intently examining mine. There wasn’t the slightest indication that she recognized that a) we had, in fact, met before; b) I was her new employee; or c) I was not Emily.
‘Hello, Ms Priestly,’ I squeaked impulsively, even though somewhere in the back of my head I knew that she hadn’t uttered a word yet. But the tension was unbearable, and I couldn’t help but barrel forward. ‘I’m so excited to be working for you. Thank you so much for the opportunity to …’ Shut up! Just shut your stupid mouth! Talk about no dignity.
She walked away. Finished looking me up and down, pushed backward off the counter, and just walked away while I was stuttering mid-sentence. I could feel heat coming off my face, a flush of confusion and pain and humiliation all wrapped into one, and it didn’t help that I could feel Emily glaring at me. I pulled my hot face upward and confirmed that Emily was indeed glaring at me.
‘Is the Bulletin updated?’ Miranda asked to no one in particular as she walked into her office and, I noticed happily, directly to the light table where I’d arranged her papers.
‘Yes, Miranda. Here it is,’ Emily said obsequiously, racing in behind her and handing her the clipboard where we kept all of Miranda’s messages typed as they came in.
I sat quietly, watching Miranda move deliberately around her office in the picture frames that hung on her wall: if I looked at the glass instead of at the photos themselves, I could see her reflection. Emily immediately busied herself at her desk, and silence prevailed. Do we never get to talk to each other or anyone else if she’s in the office? I wondered. I wrote a quick e-mail to Emily, asking her as much, which I saw her receive and read. Her answer came back right away: You got it, she wrote. If you and I have to talk, we whisper. Otherwise, no talking. And don’t EVER speak to her unless she speaks to you. And do not EVER call her Ms Priestly – it’s Miranda. Got it? I felt again as if I had been slapped, but I looked up and nodded. And it was then I noticed the coat. It was right there, a great big pile of fabulous-looking fur, all bunched up on the end of my desk, with one arm dangling off the edge. I looked at Emily. She rolled her eyes, waved her hand toward the closet, and mouthed, ‘Hang it up!’ It was as heavy as a wet down comforter coming out of the washing machine, and I needed both hands to keep it from dragging on the floor, but I gingerly hung it on one of the silk hangers and gently, quietly, closed the doors.
I hadn’t even sat back down when Miranda appeared next to me, and this time her eyes were free to roam over my entire body. Impossible as it seemed, I could feel each body part ignite as she eyed it, but I was frozen, unable to dive back to my chair. Just as my hair was about to catch fire, those relentless blue eyes finally stopped on mine.
‘I’d like my coat,’ she said quietly, looking directly at me, and I wondered if she wondered who I was, or if she didn’t notice or care that there was a relative stranger posing as her assistant. There wasn’t so much as a glimmer of recognition, even though my interview with her had taken place a few weeks earlier.
‘Surely,’ I managed, and moved toward the closet again, which was an awkward